The Mind: Christian and Ameircan

Superficial sugar pills of spirituality speaks of all those self-help authors and speakers who want to make you feel good about your Christianity at all cost. It is inevitable when they need to be popular and need to make a profit off of you. Paul explained the situation when he or his less than sugar coated doctrines were not being taught and preached:“For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” (Acts 20:29-30)

The words are so short, so easy to read or hear that we miss the full impact: (1) in the place of sound Bible teachers and preachers such as the Apostle Paul who labored among the churches of Asia Minor for many years would enter newcomvers to get access to flocks of Christians; (2) the character of these substitutes for good shepherd pastors and teachers is such to be called by Paul “grievous wolves”, and you know in order to be attractive these wolves appear to be smiling and lovely sheep; (3) they are so bad that they scatter the flock, diverting them with sugar coated sugar pills away from what they really need; (4) don’t look for these predators as foreigners, they come right in from among you that appear to be your very own–in other words it is easy for you to identify with them; (5) the sugar pills are smooth words yet they are dangerous and destructive “perserve things” which we know from the rest of the Bible like in Titus, First and Second Timothy to be unsound doctrine–I know Bill Gaither likes to say “much of the great theology of the church has come through the music”; true however the opposite is also conexistent, the sound can be so good the sound doctrine of the content can be missed {Never have we thought that music could be so detrimental in the church as smooth sounds without enough sound doctrine!}; (6) it is so obvious that these sugar coated speakers “draw away disciples to themselves”, or wrap up people in their own personalities rather than that of Christ that in this day of much hero worship in America, we tend to look at them as sheep we love instead of destructive and savage wolves.

Beautiful wolves with smooth and soothing words is not new under the sun as the Prophet Isaiah dealt with the same thing:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!” (Isaiah 5:20-23)

The smooth talkers and debaters even have the nerve to water down the whiskey as “they are big wine drinkers, strong men that “mingle strong drink with the wine”, In other words, they water down the message of God.

And the responsibility falls on the listerners and readers that they deceive themselve between good and evil, between darkness and light, “that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” All this popularity of superficial self-help would not be possible except God’s people like in Isaiah and Jeremiah’s day wanted it to be so; and such a repeat in this spiritual and sociological phenomenon today in America, begs an issue that is also ignored and denied, that of the great apostasy called the Falling Away.

If you have trouble seeing how sugar coated pills are being feed you by the popular preachers of perversion, then stop to think about how little if ever do they teach and preach you on the great reality of the Falling Away just before the Second Coming. Some even deny it with the “demonic veil of the rapture”. Yet they make within themselves the characteristics today of the great apostasy of the Falling Away that Paul wrote of in II Timothy 4:3,4:

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (II Timothy 4:3,4)

And on the more positive side the verse before this, II Timothy 4:2, tells what could have prevented this if sugar coated superficials had not been so popular in Christianity as a substitute for preaching and teaching the whole Word of God–

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (II Timothy 4:2)

Look at the kind of words that you should be hearing in good Quality Control of preaching and teaching, words of “reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Two out three of those words are more bitter than sweet, and even exhortation can not consistent with the total Bible be sugar coated words of superficiality.

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Published by sungrist3in1

Newer profile for Scottish Corner Research and Photos to a fighting Highlander; however it would seem that they more accurately made contributions as farmers and Presbyterians, also contributing to the Scot and Scot-Irish pioneer spirit that made such a contribution to America. Often settlers would strive to use them as "arrow catchers" outside their own settlements. However, in search of land for a living, they were up to the task. The big rural Ulster scene reminds us of perhaps the main thrust for pioneering with a farm scene, courtesy of Scot in Ulster.
Of course even in Ulster they felt pressures against freedom of worship from the Anglicans and Irish Catholics.
http://www.biblecombibleman.com/ScottishCorner.html﻿
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